My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope. – Job 7:6

Today's Scripture Reading (July 5, 2021): Job 7

Life is made up of threads. Maybe we start with the bland, ordinary thread that everyone shares, but as we experience life, we add color to the tapestry we create. The more varied the experience, the more colors we generate to include in our creation. Each tapestry that we make is different from any other that has ever been created; it is solely ours. And we keep on working at our creation until the day that we leave this existence, the day that we run out of thread.

Job laments that his days are swifter than a "weaver's shuttle." The shuttle holds the thread as it is passed back and forth, and, in Job's day, that process would have been done by hand, as the weaver creates the fabric. But it works only as long as the shuttle has thread.

Job seems to be caught in a dilemma. At this moment, amidst his pain and sleepless nights, life is dragging. But the good days passed with speed, and he wonders why the good days pass with such haste while the evil days lag on. It is a question that all of us face. Why is it that our vacation days, the trips that we have planned for, seem to pass almost before they begin, yet there are some days when the last hour of work seems to last forever? Why can't the good days pass slowly while the bad moments and days speed past us?

Abraham ibn Ezra, the 12th century Jewish Bible Scholar, notes that the word we have translated as "hope" in this passage, "tiqva," literally means a cord or a thread. And in this comment, as Job says, "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without 'hope,'" the prophet means both. Job has run out of hope for the future, but he is also running out of the thread he needs to create the tapestry of his life.

Ironically, Robert Browning wrote his classic historical poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" after reading about the life and word of Abraham ibn Ezra. The poem begins with words,

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

Job would not have agreed. The hope that he had when he was younger for the last part of his life has been stolen from him. He is running out of thread, and his tapestry is incomplete, and he has no hope to find more thread to complete it. "Worse than the disease itself, Job lost all hope of being healed. He believed his only release from pain was death" (Elmer B. Smick).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Job 8